[Zope-dev] Open letters, hijacking and the like

[Simon Coles]

--On Sunday, December 2, 2001 3:08 pm -0800 Clark O'Brien 
<clark_obrien@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On the one hand ZC is this munificent benefactor of
> Zope.
>
> On the other hand ZC is this poor cash strapped little
> company that can't afford to take any interest in Zope
> unless they have an immediate incentive.
>
> YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS DUDE. I AM SORRY BUT THIS
> IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE.

Heh. In the ideal world, this may be true. However, the real world is a 
balance. Any company that becomes an open-ended "munificent benefactor" 
either goes bust or becomes a charity - and even charities need revenue. On 
the other hand, if Zope Corp. become too internally focussed, they lose the 
community.

The trick that ZC is trying to pull off is to fulfill the promise of "The 
Cathedral and the Bazzar" and make this Open Source thing happen for real. 
I for one applaud them and really hope they make it (and that Paul & Co. 
write a book about it for the rest of us to give to investors to get them 
to buy into our plans :-).

Without projects like Zope Corp., Open Source is just going to be a 
plaything for students and geeks in their spare time. Me, I'd like Open 
Source to become The Way Software is Developed.

Consider - what other companies have someone of Paul's seniority 
particiapting forums like this? Forgive me for putting words into his 
mouth, but at Paul's level, you don't muck around, if something is a waste 
of time, you stop doing it. Generally the things on your radar would be 
investors, important customers,  strategy, and shaping your organisation. 
The Zope community is obviously valued by Zope Corp., or they'd ignore us.

I suggest we need to all join in a constructive, mature conversation about 
how to make Zope, and Zope Corp's business model a success. If we pull that 
off, we'll be doing the world of Open Source Software a great service.

BTW, Those of you that aren't yet in the business world, or are currently 
at a level where business issues don't matter that much, I suggest learning 
from the business perspective of what's going on here will do you a lot of 
good in your future careers. Zope as a technology will be hot for a 
comparatively short period compared to the business model.



Simon
(who just became a CEO himself, and sees the world in a different light now)

--------- My opinions are my own, NIP's opinions are theirs ----------
Simon J. Coles                                 Email: simon@nipltd.com
New Information Paradigms                  Work Phone: +44 1344 753703
http://www.nipltd.com/                     Work Fax:   +44 1344 753742
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